


becket’s paradox and other cosmological constants

by redbullmocktails



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drift - Freeform, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Physics Dean Stacker Pentecost, Physics Teacher Raleigh Becket, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 12:27:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20948327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbullmocktails/pseuds/redbullmocktails
Summary: Raleigh Becket knows he cannot refuse a job at the University of Anchorage, not when Professor Stacker Pentecost, a legend in the academic community, offers him a post. Returning years later to his hometown, having escaped from his family tragedy, Raleigh begins working as a lecturer of physics history. Already in the first class with her brilliance, one of the students - Mako Mori, adopted daughter of Pentecost - draws his attention.However, Raleigh is, first and all, a scientist. He didn’t believe in love at first sight -  moreover, there was no formula to describe it. But as time goes by, his faith in science and principles is put to the test - and Raleigh increasingly thinks that perhaps, between numbers and symbols of equations, lies the force that lies at the heart of the unity of the entire universe.





	becket’s paradox and other cosmological constants

**Author's Note:**

> I had that idea to write for some time now and I will try to do my best - after all I wanted, really wanted to try myself out in writing something difffrent than my novel. I hope you'all enjoy it ;)

The heat that was in the air, even though the air conditioning was on, killed everything but thought.

Texas was ruthless, but Raleigh wanted no mercy. The wastelands of sand, the azure skies stretching for hundreds of kilometers were what he needed. The complete opposite of the place where he grew up. The heat did not fall, on the contrary - from day to day, in a place where there was no division into summer, autumn, winter - it was always as the Texans said - hot as in Hades.

Everyone had their own private version of hell, but Raleigh sent himself to it.

He worked, like in a trance, sweaty, conscientiously, accurately, methodically - car by car, truck by truck, engine by engine, sometimes with admiration looking at electrical installations in cars.

They said that no one else like him understands these new hybrids because the old mechanics had problems. Raleigh had no problem with electricity because it had no secrets for him.

[But it was an echo of another life - from which memories and knowledge remained.]

“So you're doing it now?”

Raleigh looked up.

In the garage door stood none other than Stacker Pentecost.

The last person he would expect here.

[The last person he would like to see.]

Pentecost entered the garage. It seemed to Raleigh that he must have had other laws of thermodynamics - because he was wearing a thick coat when Raleigh was already melting his T-shirt.

[Promoter of my doctoral thesis.]

His life - that life - when he thought of the stars - was the life of someone else.

"Professor," Raleigh muttered, starting by wiping his hands on an already dirty rag, just rubbing the grease worse. “I didn't expect you here.”

"I've been looking for you a long time, Becket."

"Five years, four months," he replied.

Pentecost regarded him in silence.

“Many people run away. But looking for a physics doctor who literally falls like stone into water was a challenge.”

"And yet you are here," Raleigh turned. “This is an example of entropy, the stone will fall and fall to the bottom –“

“I'm not talking about your work here, Becket. Nor about your brother.”

Raleigh pursed his lips.

"Still, you did mention him."

[Raleigh couldn't remember Yancy, no.]

“A person with your experience should not be wasted here.”

Raleigh laughed.

“Experience?”

“Everyone makes mistakes –“

"And you committed him by coming here," Raleigh interrupted. “It's my life. I like it.”

[It wasn't like that at all. He hated this life.]

[He hated himself.]

Raleigh remembered the years when he was young and was devouring books. He wanted to know everything - from the stars, from their star spectra, to how electromagnetism works. He learned languages, absorbed them like a sponge, with every place where he would not go with his family, mother, father, Yancy and Jaz.

However, physics in its own way was the first, most perfect and last language of the universe.

But knowing it - at first so sweet, beautiful - marked him.

“I've got a job, Becket. At University. In Anchorage. Physics history.”

Raleigh froze.

Pentecost looked at him and approached him.

"I know what you're running from, but ..." The black man fell silent. "Perhaps ... you were right."

Raleigh was not breathing.

"You can stay here, in grease and metal, but I know what your mind hides," whispered Pentecost. “I saw it, when we were doing our experiments. And if you were right ... then… you will save many people's lives.”

[I didn’t save Yancy.]

"We can use you," he added. "But the more you run, the more it will haunt you."

[Already did.]

[For five years. Four months.]

"So you can ... stay here and let the weight of remorse crush you into the hadron," said Pentecost. “Or agree.”

“What do you prefer?”


End file.
